Safe House

WHEN I FIRST SPOKE with Rosa Sabido, she had been in sanctuary at Mancos United Methodist Church in Colorado for 75 days. She sleeps in a makeshift room in what used to be the church’s nursery, the head of her bed resting against a small mural of Noah’s Ark. Members of the church donated a bed, a dresser, and a computer with internet access and also installed a shower in the room itself.

Most days she has visitors, including members of the church and her parents, who take turns sleeping in a nearby office during the night and keep Sabido company during the day. She bakes when she feels inspired and sometimes joins church members in practicing yoga. But Sabido is clear: Sanctuary isn’t glamorous.

“The hardest thing is having to depend on someone,” said Sabido. “I have always been self-sufficient, always working to fulfill my needs and my parents’ needs.”

Sabido was raised in Mexico City but fled to the U.S. in 1987 due to the city’s increasing violence; she was 23. For the past 30 years, Sabido has lived in Cortez, Colo., a small town where her mother is a legal resident and her stepfather is a naturalized citizen. Sabido worked as a secretary at a nearby church and prepared taxes at H&R Block, using her salary to support her parents.

But since Sabido didn’t have documents that would allow her to stay in the U.S. permanently, she used visitor visas to travel between Mexico and the U.S. In 1998, she was stopped at the airport and deported back to Mexico City. She returned to the U.S. and in 2008 was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). But instead of being immediately re-deported, Sabido was released and asked to check in with ICE regularly, which she did. Each year she paid $155 and applied in person for a stay of removal, a direct order from the Department of Homeland Security that restricts ICE from deporting an undocumented immigrant. And up until earlier this year, her stays were approved.

This wasn’t unusual: Under the Obama administration, more than 3 million undocumented immigrants were forcibly removed—more than under any other president in U.S. history; the administration claimed that those prioritized for deportation were mainly undocumented immigrants who had been convicted of felonies. But under the Trump administration, things changed: All undocumented immigrants, including Sabido, are now considered targets for detention and deportation. In fact, from Jan. 22 to April 29, 2017, there were 10,800 arrests of undocumented immigrants without criminal records, compared to 4,200 such arrests during the same period in 2016—an increase of more than 150 percent.

And earlier this year, Sabido got bad news: ICE had denied her request for a one-year stay of removal. This meant Sabido was eligible for immediate deportation to Mexico. Her options were limited: face deportation, go into hiding, or seek sanctuary. She chose the latter.

An adaptable movement

When most people picture the sanctuary movement, they probably envision someone like Rosa Sabido: an undocumented immigrant taking refuge in a church to avoid deportation. And historically, this has been true: In the 1980s, political refugees fled violence in Central America and took sanctuary in U.S. churches to avoid deportation back to their countries of origin—a sentence that would have meant near-certain death for many of the refugees. The goal of the movement was to save lives: Many of the refugees remained in U.S. churches until they were secretly transported to Canada via an underground-railroad-like network of churches or until the U.S. granted them political asylum.

Two decades later, the movement was revived after Congress failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform during the Bush administration. The new initiative, known as the New Sanctuary Movement, aimed “to offer sanctuary to a few representative families who would become the face of the immigrant reality,” explained movement co-founder Alexia Salvatierra in a 2007 issue of Sojourners. Most of those who took sanctuary in U.S. churches during this era weren’t recent refugees, but were undocumented immigrants who had lived in this country for years—and whose communities and families would be torn apart were they to be deported.

In 2014, as the number of deportations under the Obama administration began to rise, the movement surged again, this time to hold the administration accountable to its stated policy of targeting convicted felons for removal. When undocumented immigrants without a criminal record received deportation orders, churches opened their doors to provide sanctuary while lawyers appealed the immigrants’ cases through the legal system—as Southside Presbyterian of Tucson, Ariz., one of the original sanctuary congregations of the ’80s, did for Daniel Neyoy Ruiz in 2014. In other words: The sanctuary movement appeared—and adapted—when the community needed it.

Today, immigrants taking physical sanctuary in a place of worship remains a key part of the movement. For Craig Paschal, pastor of Mancos United Methodist Church, it wasn’t hard to decide what to do when Rosa Sabido approached him and asked if she could live in his church’s building to avoid deportation. Mancos is a small town with just over 1,300 residents; Paschal often ran into Sabido at the supermarket, and he sometimes bought the tamales that Sabido sold near the store. “The beauty of living in such a small town is the intimacy in the community,” said Paschal. “We were always just living life together. We were friends and community members first, and that was that.” Sabido entered sanctuary in Mancos United Methodist earlier this summer.

Paschal disagrees with those who claim sanctuary is unlawful. “One time the law of the land was slavery. I think it’s a cop-out to say ‘The law is the law,’” he said. “If the law is not grounded in love, grace, and human dignity, then we need to question and challenge that law, and that’s what we’re doing.”

A ministry of presence

Paschal’s commitment reverberates throughout all sanctuary congregations—a faith-rooted resolve to protect and stand in solidarity with undocumented immigrants that reaches back to the scriptural commandment “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner.” Yet the needs of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. today stretch beyond seeking safety in church buildings, and the understanding of what it means for a church to offer sanctuary has expanded accordingly.

According to Rev. Noel Andersen, grassroots coordinator for immigrants’ rights at Church World Service, the number of sanctuary congregations has doubled since Trump’s inauguration. Yet not all congregations—either for reasons of space, safety, or legal risk—physically host someone in their building as Paschal’s congregation has done. Of the roughly 800 U.S. sanctuary congregations, including churches, synagogues, and mosques, only about a dozen are currently home to someone in need of physical sanctuary.

For sanctuary congregations that are unable to host someone, there are other ways to offer support. As seen in the cases of immigrants such as Roxana Orellana Santos, these alternate methods of participating in sanctuary offer real protection.

In August, Santos, an immigrant from El Salvador, was scheduled for a routine check-in with ICE in Baltimore. Typically, check-ins are for undocumented immigrants who ICE doesn’t consider an immediate priority for deportation. During these appointments, ICE officials make sure immigrants are working and provide proof of their current address; however, in some cases since Trump’s election, immigrants who report for a check-in have been immediately detained and deported.

As the date of her check-in neared, Santos began to fear she might be detained for deportation when she arrived for her appointment. So Santos’ attorneys and supporters began organizing a rally outside the ICE office to take place on the day of Santos’ check-in—a way to create public support and remind ICE that Santos is a valued member of the community. They also asked for “accompaniment,” a sanctuary strategy where several people join an immigrant and remain present throughout the entire check-in appointment. The accompaniers—who immigrants sometimes request be clergy members—provide emotional support, put pressure on ICE officials to avoid drastic actions, and contact family members if something goes wrong.

On the day of her check-in, Santos was accompanied by Rev. Julia Jarvis and Rev. Alex Vishio. Both pastors wore clergy collars, a visual cue to ICE officials that Santos had the support of the faith community. They walked into the ICE office with Santos, prepared for any outcome. It was an emotional moment. “I could hear her little girls crying, and it was piercing thinking that they might not ever see her again,” said Jarvis.

After a security check, Santos and her accompaniers waited two hours before they walked into the stuffy room where the check-in would take place. As they waited, Jarvis spoke with Santos through an interpreter, helping her meditate and calm her body with breathing exercises. They looked at videos of Santos’ twin girls from her phone, laughing at funny memories. Yet Jarvis was careful not to offer false hope; she avoided saying “Everything is going to be okay.” She said, “We’re just present with whatever is happening.”

In the end, Santos came out of the office with a stay of removal, greeted with cheers from her supporters at the rally outside. “It’s a clear mandate to be in solidarity with those who are marginalized,” said Jarvis.

“They are capable”

Beginning last February, community organizer Jeanette Vizguerra spent more than 86 days in sanctuary at a Denver church. On May 3, 2017, she was granted a two-year stay of removal and left the church.

Through an interpreter, Vizguerra told Sojourners of her struggles in sanctuary. Though she missed her family and worried incessantly about her future in the U.S., she continued to speak out and organize on behalf of undocumented immigrants. While she was in sanctuary, Vizguerra gave presentations to visiting groups of university students, talking to them about the U.S. immigration system. When other undocumented immigrants came into the church, Vizguerra would document their cases and follow up with them. Her work led her to be named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2017.

But Vizguerra’s experience also gave her a front-row seat to the challenges currently facing the sanctuary movement. Though she said the level of solidarity she received was astounding—complete strangers visited her, sent her supportive messages, and reminded her there was a community supporting her—she became frustrated when those in sanctuary were repeatedly depicted as helpless, voiceless victims. This bothered her because she knew that people who seek sanctuary were like her: people who worked jobs, took care of families, and lived independent lives in the U.S. And she knew that being in sanctuary tears that reality to shreds.

Vizguerra also saw well-intentioned and passionate people join the movement and make their voices louder than those it most directly affected. As a result, she felt her voice was often left out of the conversation, especially when it came to matters involving the money that had been raised on Vizguerra’s behalf through a fundraising website.

“Sometimes white allies have a culture that is very paternalistic; they have to learn how to listen to us,” said Vizguerra.

Alexia Salvatierra of the New Sanctuary Movement agrees. As a seminary student in the ’80s, Salvatierra attended a sanctuary church and saw U.S. citizens willingly risk jail time to shelter those the government sought to deport. But according to Salvatierra, the risks for people in sanctuary—today, as in the ’80s—is always far greater than what their allies face.

Those who are deported today risk being physically—and permanently—separated from their families. In many cases, those who are deported become targets of violence. Even while they remain in the U.S., the mental health of undocumented immigrants suffers from the anxiety of not knowing how much longer they have left in this country they’ve called home.

“The story is usually told that the citizens were heroes, but it was really a partnership and a mutual sacrifice,” said Salvatierra.

Vizguerra’s advice to congregations looking to become a place of sanctuary to undocumented immigrants is simple: “The people within sanctuary have to lead the movement,” she said. “They are capable.”